i am using macafee security suite 2004 so i am very well
protected. i am a novice at this but the way i understand
it is that a wireless router works as well as or better
than a wired connection. i am not sure how to explane but
as an example i tried to buy a mobile phone from a
retailer in the uk were i live and it would not load up
the page to the checkout. hope this helps you to try and
help me
Richard,
It's good that you have McAfee Security Suite.
Unfortunately, with crapware detection, it's always a reactive process. That
is, the security products can only do what they're designed to do. The bad guys
can change their crap faster than the good guys can. Advantage bad guys.
Since the bad guys have the advantage, you are better off using multiple
security products, with the hope that what one might miss another might catch.
No security product is 100% accurate, even McAfee.
That is the reason for Defense In Depth.
- Hardware firewall / NAT router on the perimeter.
- Personal firewall on each computer.
- Virus protection (realtime / scheduled scans).
- Spyware protection (realtime / scheduled scans).
And, since you have reported a problem, I advised you multiple virus and spyware
checks. All of them are free.
Incidentally, writing a useful and coherent reply to you would be hella easier
if you had replied to me in the same thread as you started. Right now I am
having to switch back and forth between the previous thread and this one.
Anyway, I confirmed my suspicions about WinMX. WinMX is a FREE file-sharing
program like no other. It allows you to connect, download, and share files with
MILLIONS of other users through the decentralized WinMX Peer Network.
<
http://www.winmx.com/>
P2P (Person To Person), which is what WinMX is, means you share (upload) files
as well as access (download) them. Sharing (acting as a server) can degrade
your bandwidth. If you have asynchronous broadband (ADSL or cable), excessive
uplink traffic (by folks accessing your share) can cause your downlink traffic
to suffer.
Also, opening ports to act as a server means folks could conceivably put
something on your computer that McAfee MIGHT NOT detect. Or YOU might have
downloaded an infected file.
WinMX respects your privacy and doesn't contain spyware. That means you don't
get spyware with the software itself. That doesn't protect you from other
infected systems.
Richard, scan your system. Please. All the products I recommended are free,
and most are very small so they should download fairly quickly, at least with
WinMX not running.
What happened to Akamai (and Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo et al) yesterday was no
accident.
<
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2004-06-15>
DDOS attacks, in some cases, use compromised computers such as yours. P2P
networks are popular ways of spreading programs that could facilitate a DDOS
attack.
IMHO, you need to shut WinMX off until you verify that you are not infected. If
you are infected, you could be further spreading the infection.
WRT wireless networks vs wired networks, wireless is good because it does not
use wires. Wireless is not as secure as wired. Wireless is not as fast as
wired. Wireless latency makes gaming on a wireless LAN not fun.
A wired switch, with multiple hosts attached, can support multiple two way (full
duplex) conversations. A wireless network is half duplex, and all the hosts
using the network have to share the same channel.
Running a P2P server thru a wireless network could be as frustrating as gaming.
Trying to download files from other systems, while others are trying to upload
files from you, will mean that everybody is experiencing frustration.
To summarise, I see three possible problems that could degrade your network
performance.
1) Your broadband link could be saturated by excessive uplink traffic.
2) Your wireless network could be saturated by excessive uplink traffic.
3) You could well have an infection (virus or spyware) saturating your network,
or your cpu utilisation.
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
